Jettisoning Trent Lott

December 21, 2002

A couple of weeks ago, Trent Lott was riding high. After being blamed for last year's defection of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords, which put the Senate under Democratic control, he had the satisfaction of seeing his party regain its majority in the November elections--and the pleasure of looking forward to being Republican leader under a Republican president. But it didn't work out that way. When the next Congress convenes, Lott will be just one of 100 senators.

That's because he didn't reckon with something dangerous and unpredictable--his own tongue. At a party for South Carolina Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday, Lott praised his 1948 race for president as nominee of the segregationist States' Rights party. At first, the reaction from within and without was pretty mild. But it turned out that Lott had said the same thing on multiple occasions.

Soon he was under siege, particularly from conservatives who thought he had done inexcusable damage to the Republican cause. And Friday, with the White House working behind the scenes and his onetime followers falling away, Lott finally came to grips with reality and resigned his leadership post.

That's a welcome step, and the only drawback is that it didn't come sooner.

President Bush and most national Republican leaders have made a concerted effort to expand the party's appeal to minority voters--particularly African-Americans, who have been monolithically Democratic for nearly 40 years. For Lott to suggest that white supremacy was an admirable cause indicated not only political stupidity but moral blindness. It put his party on the wrong side of a question that was settled long ago.

Truth be told, one reason Republicans were so quick to repudiate Lott was that he reminded them of their own checkered history on the subject. The party became competitive in the South in the last generation only because many whites abandoned the Democratic Party over its support of civil rights. President Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" was based partly on making these whites feel welcome. And though most Republicans were not bigots, most bigots ended up as Republicans.

As governor of Texas and as president, though, Bush has made a point of rejecting appeals to racial prejudice. The 2000 Republican convention showcased minority officeholders, and Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have more White House influence than any African-Americans before them.

Bush can't revamp the party's approach or its image on his own. Both would gain if Lott is replaced by Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, a surgeon who has distinguished himself by his work on health-care issues. He's a Southerner who has no unsavory history on racial issues. He has a longstanding practice of traveling to Africa every year to work as a medical missionary.

The Lott episode was a setback for the party's reputation. But its quickness to jettison a leader for his dubious views about race suggests that Republicans are ready to do their best to compete for black voters. That's a good thing for the party and a better one for the country.